Adblocking on mobile devices is now twice as prevalent as on desktop computers, according to a new report.
The 2016 Mobile Adblocking Report by PageFair and Priori Data found that at least 419 million people are blocking ads on smartphones worldwide, a massive 21% of the total market.
However, only 14m of those users are in the UK and North America.
A key driver of people using adblockers seems to be the associated data costs, which are higher in other parts of the world.
Adblocking apps on Apple’s iOS, allowed for the first time last year, have only been downloaded 4.5m times.
According to the research, 408m of the users did so through browsers which automatically block ads such as Adblock Plus, Brave and UC Browser.
A huge 36% of smartphone users in the Asia-Pacific region are blocking mobile ads, many through UC Browser, which is owned by Chinese unicorn Alibaba.
Jamaican firm Digicel made headlines when it rolled out network-level adblocking for its 13.6m customers.
That model seems set to be followed by the UK’s fourth-largest mobile carrier Three, which is to run a 24-hour adblocking trial this month.
In contrast to the 419m worldwide figure, last year PageFair reported that there were 198m desktop adblockers.
PageFair provides adblocking solutions to publishers while Priori Data deals in mobile data.